


Little Fingers Don't Let Go

by closemyeyesandleap



Series: Families of SHIELD [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Baby, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Post-Season 5, Reconciliation, Team as Family, changes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 23:11:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15851364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closemyeyesandleap/pseuds/closemyeyesandleap
Summary: Ten months after saving the world from Graviton, a nervous Daisy goes to visit Mack and YoYo's five-week-old baby daughter.





	Little Fingers Don't Let Go

Daisy’s fist hovered over Mack and YoYo’s front door, hesitating. She suddenly felt afraid. _It’s just a baby_ , she reasoned.

She had faced aliens, terrorists, Hydra, and a juiced-up Talbot. A baby should be nothing. 

Then again, everything seemed more overwhelming lately.

Besides, Daisy had never been overly fond of babies. As a little girl, she remembered beaming at prospective parents in St. Agnes, hoping beyond hope that they would bring her home and be her family. Almost every time, they walked out cradling a cooing infant in their arms. As she grew, each stab of rejection grew duller and duller as she accepted that she would never be adopted into a family. After that point, babies changed from competition to mere nuisances—wailing intrusions to her rare moments of solitude, yet another chore on her list.

“You ever going to come in, Tremors?” Mack’s voice pulled her from her headspace.

“Mack! How’d you know I was here?”

Mack gave her an inquisitive look. “I’m the director of SHIELD, Daisy. I have a camera, and a motion detector, and a few other bells and whistles, which, if I remember correctly, _you_ programmed.”

“Oh,” said Daisy, feeling foolish. “Right.”

She followed Mack into his home. The interior was modest and sparsely decorated. Mack and YoYo had moved off the base only weeks before their daughter, Rosy, was born. It appeared their new baby duties during the following weeks left them little time for decorating. 

Daisy’s duties managing SHIELD as interim director during Mack’s leave had left her little time to visit during the first few weeks of Rosy’s life. At least, that’s what she told herself. The rest of the team had managed to come before her. She felt a pang of guilt as she looked up at Mack’s warm smile.

Mack and Daisy entered the living room. Like the rest of the house, it was free of most decorations except a wide, navy sofa that filled most of the room. A crocheted white blanket lay on top of the sofa, and on it sat YoYo, her mechanical arms cradled around a tiny figure. 

“ _Mira, mi cielo. Llegó tu tía. ¿Quieres verla? Sí, mi amor, sí,_ ” YoYo cooed at the baby who whimpered and cooed in equal measure. 

“Oh!” Daisy felt her heart leap. “Mack, YoYo, she’s perfect.”

YoYo looked up at Daisy. “Do you want to hold her?”

Daisy nodded, feeling much shyer than usual. It wasn’t just the baby. Ten months had passed since she had blasted Talbot into space, since they had saved the world from cracking apart. Neither she nor YoYo held open resentment towards the other. Still, a slight coldness lingered at the edges of their friendship.

Daisy pushed aside her nerves and settled next to YoYo on the couch. YoYo gently passed Rosy into Daisy’s arms. Rosy started whimpering and then wailing as she felt herself passing from her mother into a stranger’s arms. 

“ _No llores, mi amor. Ay, no llores, Rosita, mi cielo. Es tu tía._ ” YoYo cooed at Rosy, her arms brushing against Daisy’s as she helped Rosy settle comfortably in Daisy’s arms.  


Daisy cuddled Rosy, taking care to support her head. She gently rocked her back and forth. Rosy’s wails slowly stilled and her long eyelashes fluttered as she fell asleep again. 

Daisy sat transfixed as she cuddled Rosy. The baby had settled contentedly in her arms. Daisy took in everything: Rosy’s soft, caramel skin, her long eyelashes, her full head of fiercely black hair, her impossibly tiny fingers and toes. Rosy’s right hand had curled around one of Daisy’s fingers and held it tight as she slept. 

As she took Rosy in, she saw flashes of Mack and YoYo in every feature, the resemblance growing and fading as the baby was at once a tiny version of her friends and an entirely new, perfect little creature. 

Daisy glanced up at Mack, tears in her eyes, and repeated, “Mack, she’s just perfect.” 

The proud dad beamed back at her. “Well, we certainly think so. She’s our little angel.”

“Rosy Esperanza Mackenzie-Rodriguez,” YoYo added, then laughed. “Her name is bigger than she is.”

Daisy pressed Rosy closer to her chest as the baby stirred. “She’ll grow into it,” she whispered. 

Rosy started to whimper again as her eyes fluttered open. Daisy looked into the round, brown eyes and felt all the warmth of Mack’s gaze in his baby’s. Rosy kicked her legs and arms a bit, and Daisy shifted the baby in her arms, trying to calm her down. Rosy turned her head to Daisy’s chest and started gently to nip at her blouse. 

“Um, YoYo, I think she’s hun–”

Before she could finish her sentence, she felt a slight breeze to her side and saw YoYo standing next to her with a bottle.

“-gry. You’ll be the envy of all busy moms. You know that, right?” Daisy laughed. 

YoYo smirked. “Well, I have daddy turtleman here to slow me down.” 

“Hey now!” Mack protested, but he too was smiling.

YoYo handed Mack the bottle, and he took Rosy from Daisy’s arms to feed her. As Rosy sucked at her bottle, Daisy couldn’t take her eyes off the little girl. 

A tingling warmth spread throughout her body. Rosy looked even tinier in Mack’s huge arms, but Mack seemed right at home as he fed her daughter. Daisy’s heart felt overwhelmed with the love she felt for Rosy. 

Watching Mack, it occurred to Daisy that she finally understood what had driven her father to search for her for decades even though he didn’t really know her, even though he had never held a conversation with her or met her as the woman she had grown to be. She’d always assumed he was crazy, fanatical, but now… now she understood. 

Already, Daisy knew that she would be willing to give her life for Rosy, and she hadn’t even known the baby for an hour.

She wiped away another unwanted tear and watched as Mack gently burped Rosy. Milk drunk, Rosy smacked her lips and settled into her dad’s arms. 

She really should have come sooner. 

“We’re going to need to start a SHIELD daycare or something,” Daisy joked. “So we can keep this little girl with us all the time once you guys come back. I know Fitzsimmons will give her a little friend one of these days.”

YoYo and Mack glanced at each other. YoYo gave a half shrug. “Now is as good a time as any.”

Daisy looked from Mack to YoYo and back to Mack. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing like that,” Mack assured her. “It’s just, I’m not going back to SHIELD, Daisy.”

“Wait, what?!” Daisy exclaimed. Rosy jolted awake and started to whimper. “Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry,” Daisy murmured, before turning back to Mack. “What are you talking about?”

YoYo and Mack shared another look. Mack pulled his daughter deeper into his arms before answering. “I want to be around to take care of this little girl. And you know what SHIELD means to me, but I was never going to be a SHIELD lifer. It just never was the right time to leave. But now, I can’t think of a better reason.”

Daisy just sat there, stunned. Her mind whirred with dozens of retorts, arguments to convince Mack to stay, but when she opened her mouth, none came out.

She could only whisper, “I can’t lose you too.”

“Hey, Tremors, look at me.” He smiled. “I’m not going anywhere. This house is so close to the base, me and Rosy will probably feel your quakes. And she’s going to need her Aunt Daisy so you better be stopping by.”

Daisy let out a mangled laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “Of course, Mack.” 

“My brother is moving to town, and we’re also going to work on some bikes. Maybe we’ll get a bit of a business going, once this one’s a bit older. Nah, it’ll be a good life.”

“YoYo?” Daisy turned to her other friend.

YoYo shook her head, grinning. “Not getting rid of me that easy. I’m staying.”

Mack nodded. “Elena is the one with the fire in her soul. She needs to be with SHIELD. And Rosy needs at least one parent who isn’t hopping from dangerous mission to dangerous mission.” He snuggled his daughter close to his chest before passing her back to YoYo.

YoYo lifted Rosy close to her face and ran her cheek down her baby’s face, belly, and little feet and toes, before letting her rest in her mechanical arms again. 

“I’m going to miss you,” Daisy whispered to Mack.

“Like I said, you’ll be seeing plenty of me. I expect you to visit, no matter how busy you get… Director.”

Daisy shook her head slowly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mack.”

“It’s what Coulson would have wanted.”

Daisy snorted, trying to push away the pain that arose inside her as Mack said Coulson’s name. “He was wrong. We’ve already seen that, crystal clear.” 

“That was then, Tremors. It wasn’t the right time. Now, it is.”

“It’s just, Mack, I––” 

“I agree with Mack.” 

Daisy turned and stared at YoYo.

“Even then,” YoYo added, her eyes warm yet serious, “you were fighting for someone you loved. Someone we all loved. I know you can be a great leader.” Rosy’s eyes fluttered open and she began to kick and coo. “See?” YoYo smiled. “ _Mi Rosita_ agrees, _¿no es así mi amor?_ ”

“OK,” Daisy whispered, at a loss for words.

YoYo placed Rosy back in Daisy’s arms. Rosy looked back up at Daisy, her fingers intertwining with Daisy’s hair and her legs slightly kicking. “Hey, hey, careful, little girl,” Daisy giggled, trying to extricate her hair from the baby’s grip. 

Mack placed his arm around her shoulders. “See, no matter how much ‘directoring’ you’re doing, no way you’re staying away for very long. Rosy’s not going to let go.”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “I think her inhuman power is hypnotic cuteness.” 

Mack tightened his grip around her shoulder, and YoYo leaned over until the four of them were cuddled together on the couch.

Daisy sighed as Rosy drifted off to sleep once more, her little fingers still wrapped around a section of Daisy’s hair. 

She could stay like this forever.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by, and is dedicated to, my baby niece.
> 
> Note regarding series: I realized that Coulson is dead in this fic and alive in the rest in the series. (I decided to make them into a series a while after writing this one.) Oops! So, because it's Marvel and no one is ever really _dead_ dead in Marvel... T.A.H.I.T.I.! I have resurrected Phil Coulson. You're welcome :P


End file.
